Showing posts with label Chinese. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Chinese. Show all posts
Tuesday, December 13, 2016
You? You Speak Second A Language? Huh, I Never Would Have Guessed!
Below is just a small sampling of some well know individuals demonstrating their second language speaking abilities! To be sure, there are more but these are the ones I decided to highlight. If you know of more please provide more specifics and a link in the comment section below. Thanks!
This additional Bradley Cooper interview in French is for my wife. On night after we were driving home from seeing the movie Silver Linings Playbook I told my wife "You know, Bradley Cooper speaks French fluently" to which she replied "I Know, As If Wasn't Hot Enough!" :-)
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
National Football League (NFL) Player Chad Lewis Highlights the Importance of Studying a Second Language
Chad Lewis is currently a player with the Philadelphia Eagles of the National Football League in the United States. I came across this interesting video (below) on YouTube of Chad Lewis promoting the value of learning a second language, in his case the Chinese language, at BYU. Lewis has been to China multiple times to represent the NFL and in 2002 took a three nation trip to Taiwan, Singapore and Thailand. You can learn more about his travels here. Nice to see such support for foreign language study and international education from an NFL player!
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
“Go West, Young College Grad” has always implied “and don’t stop until you get to Asia…and learn Chinese along the way.”...
I'm a big fan of the annual Mindset List for many years. However, every year, I question/wonder about the accuracy of a few items on the list. My critiques are rather petty and earlier today I was highlighting a few items on the list that I disagreed with via Twitter. For example, item #64 states that "The U.S, [sic] Canada, and Mexico have always agreed to trade freely." became official on January 1, 1994. These three countries probably came to agreement in 1992 (when most of the class of 2014 were born) or 1993 but it wasn't "official" until 1994... I also disagree with item #28 "They've never recognized that pointing to their wrists was a request for the time of day." My daughter who will be in the class of 2027 (estimated) knows what that means!
In reviewing the 2010 Mindset list I was happy to see item #3 “Go West, Young College Grad” has always implied “and don’t stop until you get to Asia…and learn Chinese along the way.” I agree with this item but I don't think it is entirely accurate. I was in college in 1992 (class of 1993 myself) and I never felt guided or compelled to go to Asia or learn Chinese during or after my undergraduate studies. I was an exchange student in Germany twice during high school and studied abroad for a semester in Spain during my undergraduate studies and I considered myself to be focused on international issues and careers and China was never on my radar. Further, I have been connected to various institutions of higher education in the U.S. continually since I graduated from college and frequently have interacted with undergraduate students and if my memory serves me I don't think China was a topic of conversation in the 1990's among college students and young professionals. My wife and I participated in the Lincoln Friends of Foreign Students program [University of Nebraska-Lincoln] during our five years living, working and studying in Nebraska and one of our students was from China which opened my understanding of China and of his culture. Our discussions [in 1997] focused on U.S. perception of China, the movie Red Corner and Chinese President Jiang Zemin's visit to the United States.
Things changed, however, when I arrived in Chicago in 2000 to work at the University of Chicago as an Assistant Director in the Office of International Affairs. I served as the Fulbright Program Adviser [still do] and since that time I have seen a slow and steady increase in the number of undergraduate students interested in China and learning Chinese and my knowledge/understanding of this trend has rapidly grown since I moved to the Office of the Dean of Students in The College where I now work as Senior Adviser for International Initiatives. I speak with a large number of students interested in China who want/need to study there and learn the language.
To be sure, this item on Asia/China in the Mindset List is not directly related to study abroad. I do think that a review of the available data on U.S. students studying in China as well as the number Chinese language course offerings/enrollments at U.S institutions can be helpful in understanding this trend. In my personal timeline above [of my time in and exposure to college aged students] I have seen the interest in China and the Chinese language increase dramatically [my "data" should be viewed as anecdotal]. As much as possible I try to pay attention to the news and world events and one cannot help but notice China's meteoric rise as an economic powerhouse the past decade and in particular since the early 1990's [see my previous IHEC Blog summary post on China's astounding economic rise here].
I guess my issue with item #3 of the Mindset List is that recent college graduates in the U.S. were not really pushed towards China in the 1990's and that this is really more true for the past decade of the 2000's.
What do others think? Please leave a comment or two!
Photo credit: Riebart
Monday, June 15, 2009
Increase in Study Abroad Plans among Chinese Students
I came across an article this morning on China.org.cn. entitled “More Chinese Students Plan to Study Abroad” that caught my attention on two fronts. First, increased academic mobility among Chinese students is quite interesting to me and a topic I’ve blogged on in the past. Second, it was nice to see that the University of Chicago (my day job) was mentioned in the article as participating in the 2009 Beijing International Education Expo. According to the article, the China International Education Information Net (CIEIN) predicted that more than 100,000 students and their parents would attend the expo and that China’s Ministry of Education calculated that nearly 180,000 Chinese students studied abroad in 2008.[1] I was quite surprised to learn that only 180,000 Chinese students studied abroad last year as I thought that number would much higher! You can read the “More Chinese Students Plan to Study Abroad” article here.Following are some of my past IHEC Blog posts related to Chinese students studying abroad:
Germany a Top Destination for Chinese Students ~ The Chinese “Global Tribe” Revisited
A Bookended Approach to Attracting Chinese Students
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
Germany a Top Destination for Chinese Students ~ The Chinese “Global Tribe” Revisited
The May 29, 2009 issue of News from DAAD New York provides some interesting data on the popularity of Germany as a study abroad destination for Chinese students with a link to a related article (in German) at the DAAD-magazin.de. I have copied and pasted the entire news bit from the DAAD here:
“Germany is the second most popular destination (after the United States) for Chinese students who have received national scholarships to study abroad. In 2008, 481 Chinese students awarded scholarships went to Germany, out of 4,892 award-winning students total. That's 9.8 percent of all scholarships. “
I briefly touch on Chinese students in Germany in one of my first posts to IHEC Blog (9th post to be exact) entitled The Chinese “Global Tribe”. You can access that early post here.
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Chinese Identities
One of my research interests focuses on heritage seeking in a study abroad context. Some time ago I came across the book Chineseness Across Borders: Renegotiating Chinese Identities in China and the United States (2004) by Andrea Louie. Following is a description of the book that I prepared:
The Author and the Evolution of her Research
Andrea Louie is an Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Michigan State University. Her research for this book first began while she was a graduate student in 1992 when she participated in the Search of Roots Program and visited her paternal grandfather’s village. A subsequent return trip in 1993 with her parents led her to delve further into this research upon her return to graduate school. In 1994 she was again involved with the Roots program but this time as an observer and a final research trip in 1995 allowed her to conduct more research in the field.
Introduction
The introduction is very detailed and begins with Louie’s experience going to China and visiting her relatives. It then dives into the “Roots” program and how it has discovered different perspectives and issues that Chinese from China and Chinese Americans have amongst each other. She then starts introducing each chapter in her book to give the reader a glimpse of what is to come.
Chapter 1
Louie begins by providing some historical context of the migration of Chinese from the Guangdong Province to the United States. She then begins to weave the concepts of Chinese identity and connections to the homeland into the development of the Summer Camp and Roots Program.
Chapter 2
Louie illustrates the experiences of the Roots program participants in China. She describes how the younger generations of Chinese Americans craft their Chinese identity through multiple contexts. They craft their Chinese identity from the mixture of family histories, family kinship ties, American urban hip hop culture, Japanese manga, Hong Kong kung fu movies and Asian American activism. They see Chinese identity through the lens of Chinese American, Asian and Asian American. Louie defines this process of forming identity by Chinese Americans as a socially, geographically and transnational process.
Chapter 3
Louie discusses the Chinese Americans’ identity construction within the context of U.S. multiculturalism. Chinese American culture is viewed as inherent within U.S. multiculturalism. Chinese Americans are voluntarily or involuntarily attached to the static representations of Chinese tradition and culture that is rooted in mainland China in the past. They are thus marginalized from U.S. mainstream culture. The narratives from the program participants reveal that American-born Chinese Americans have less or no direct ties to the concept of authentic Chinese culture in mainland China. In U.S. multicultural society, the identity construction of Chinese Americans coexists with multiple levels of identifications such as Asian American, Chinese American, or just plain American, middle class Chinese American who live outside of Chinatown, Chinese Americans from the upper class Hong Kong or Taiwan origins, first, second or third generation- Chinese Americans and family ancestors’ geographic regions in China. Louie concludes the chapter that Chinese Americans are creating their own contemporary form of identity based on their ancestral ties to China and their homeland the USA where they were born and grew up.
Chapter 4
The Open Policy has allowed increased exposure to foreign images, such as print and television media, which has allowed the mainland Chinese to compare themselves more to foreigners and China to the outside world. The mainland Chinese see these images as promoting the positives aspects of life in China. Some negatives of the other countries include: mistreatment of minorities, violence, requirement to work twice as hard for the same living standard, and the high cost of living. Not having to depend financially on oversees relatives is seen as a symbol of pride. Oversees relatives are seen as “assimilated (tonghua) to other less civilized cultures ... are not culturally suited for life in China or abroad (156)”
Chapter 5
Louis delves fully into the discussion of the Youth Festival, which is held in the Guangdong Province of China, that attracts over four hundred young people of Chinese descent (huayi) from across the globe including youth from Canada, France, Germany, Madagascar, Malaysia, Tahiti and the United States. The primary goal of the Youth Festival and Summer Camps is to “invoke connections of blood and culture for the huayi in order to reacquaint them with their motherland.”
Chapter 6
Louie provides a description of the Roots program and looks at how the Roots interns construct their own sense of Chineseness and in particular, their Chinese Americanness. The chapter ends with a discussion on the future of the program and who (the Chinese government sponsors, the Chinese American community sponsors, the Chinese American leaders, the interns or their parents) will lead it into the future.
Epilogue
Louie returns to visit her relatives in Guangzhou seven years after her last visit and notes first hand the changes she sees in the town’s infrastructure and her family's attitudes and situation. Some of the things she finds, for example, are that her relatives are more prosperous and interest in immigration has decreased in the larger and richer sections of China but the poorer farming communities continue to see America as a chance to become wealthy. Pursuing one’s higher education abroad is encouraged because officials and educators believe the students will return with the knowledge to help China instead of remaining abroad.
The Author and the Evolution of her Research
Andrea Louie is an Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Michigan State University. Her research for this book first began while she was a graduate student in 1992 when she participated in the Search of Roots Program and visited her paternal grandfather’s village. A subsequent return trip in 1993 with her parents led her to delve further into this research upon her return to graduate school. In 1994 she was again involved with the Roots program but this time as an observer and a final research trip in 1995 allowed her to conduct more research in the field.
Introduction
The introduction is very detailed and begins with Louie’s experience going to China and visiting her relatives. It then dives into the “Roots” program and how it has discovered different perspectives and issues that Chinese from China and Chinese Americans have amongst each other. She then starts introducing each chapter in her book to give the reader a glimpse of what is to come.
Chapter 1
Louie begins by providing some historical context of the migration of Chinese from the Guangdong Province to the United States. She then begins to weave the concepts of Chinese identity and connections to the homeland into the development of the Summer Camp and Roots Program.
Chapter 2
Louie illustrates the experiences of the Roots program participants in China. She describes how the younger generations of Chinese Americans craft their Chinese identity through multiple contexts. They craft their Chinese identity from the mixture of family histories, family kinship ties, American urban hip hop culture, Japanese manga, Hong Kong kung fu movies and Asian American activism. They see Chinese identity through the lens of Chinese American, Asian and Asian American. Louie defines this process of forming identity by Chinese Americans as a socially, geographically and transnational process.
Chapter 3
Louie discusses the Chinese Americans’ identity construction within the context of U.S. multiculturalism. Chinese American culture is viewed as inherent within U.S. multiculturalism. Chinese Americans are voluntarily or involuntarily attached to the static representations of Chinese tradition and culture that is rooted in mainland China in the past. They are thus marginalized from U.S. mainstream culture. The narratives from the program participants reveal that American-born Chinese Americans have less or no direct ties to the concept of authentic Chinese culture in mainland China. In U.S. multicultural society, the identity construction of Chinese Americans coexists with multiple levels of identifications such as Asian American, Chinese American, or just plain American, middle class Chinese American who live outside of Chinatown, Chinese Americans from the upper class Hong Kong or Taiwan origins, first, second or third generation- Chinese Americans and family ancestors’ geographic regions in China. Louie concludes the chapter that Chinese Americans are creating their own contemporary form of identity based on their ancestral ties to China and their homeland the USA where they were born and grew up.
Chapter 4
The Open Policy has allowed increased exposure to foreign images, such as print and television media, which has allowed the mainland Chinese to compare themselves more to foreigners and China to the outside world. The mainland Chinese see these images as promoting the positives aspects of life in China. Some negatives of the other countries include: mistreatment of minorities, violence, requirement to work twice as hard for the same living standard, and the high cost of living. Not having to depend financially on oversees relatives is seen as a symbol of pride. Oversees relatives are seen as “assimilated (tonghua) to other less civilized cultures ... are not culturally suited for life in China or abroad (156)”
Chapter 5
Louis delves fully into the discussion of the Youth Festival, which is held in the Guangdong Province of China, that attracts over four hundred young people of Chinese descent (huayi) from across the globe including youth from Canada, France, Germany, Madagascar, Malaysia, Tahiti and the United States. The primary goal of the Youth Festival and Summer Camps is to “invoke connections of blood and culture for the huayi in order to reacquaint them with their motherland.”
Chapter 6
Louie provides a description of the Roots program and looks at how the Roots interns construct their own sense of Chineseness and in particular, their Chinese Americanness. The chapter ends with a discussion on the future of the program and who (the Chinese government sponsors, the Chinese American community sponsors, the Chinese American leaders, the interns or their parents) will lead it into the future.
Epilogue
Louie returns to visit her relatives in Guangzhou seven years after her last visit and notes first hand the changes she sees in the town’s infrastructure and her family's attitudes and situation. Some of the things she finds, for example, are that her relatives are more prosperous and interest in immigration has decreased in the larger and richer sections of China but the poorer farming communities continue to see America as a chance to become wealthy. Pursuing one’s higher education abroad is encouraged because officials and educators believe the students will return with the knowledge to help China instead of remaining abroad.
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
The Chinese “Global Tribe”
An important variable in the analysis of China’s significant economic growth has been the connection to and the recruitment of Chinese diaspora/expatriates around the globe. According to Cable and Ferdinand (1994), “50,000 expatriates a year are being recruited and over 100,000 Chinese work overseas on contracts and growing numbers of the Chinese elite are educated abroad. (p. 245) The value of such a huge network of Chinese residing and working around the globe is also echoed by Walder (1995) who states that “the Chinese Diaspora in South-East Asia and North America are filled with ethnic Chinese entrepreneurs who have proved to be valuable sources of knowledge and investment and who have served as important bridges to the world economy.” (p. 971) Maria Chang (1995) refers to this phenomenon as the Chinese ‘global tribe.’ She describes five major ‘global tribes’ of the world as being the Jewish diaspora, the Japanese, Asian Indians, the British and the English-speaking progeny (which includes Americans), and the Chinese. Chang further supports the claims of Cable and Ferdinand and Walder and concludes that “China stands on the cusp of a transformation in which the overseas Chinese ‘global tribe’ plays a pivotal role. Driven by the traditional motives of market-governed enterprise, the overseas Chinese have fueled the furious pace of China’s economic growth and development.” (p. 967)
The Chinese are one of the most academically mobile student populations on the planet and it is this population that is helping fuel the Chinese economy. According to the Institute of International Education, during the 2005-2006 academic year there were 62,582 students from China studying in the United States. This represents approximately 11% of the total international student population studying in the United States. Further evidence of the large numbers of Chinese students studying abroad can be found in the Institute of International Education’s Atlas of Student Mobility where 15.4% of the 344,335 international student population (the largest percentage) in the United Kingdom hails from China and in Germany students from China represent the largest percentage at 10.5% of the 246,334 total international students.
Resources
Cable, Vincent., and Ferdinand, Peter. 1994. “China as an Economic Giant: Threat or
Opportunity?” International Affairs 70: 243-261.
Chang, Maria Hsia. 1995. “Greater China and the Chinese ‘Global Tribe.’” Asian Survey 35: 955-967.
Institute of International Education. (2006). “Atlas of International Student Mobility.” http://www.atlas.iienetwork.org/
Institute of International Education. (2006). “Opendoors Online: Report on International Educational Exchange.” http://opendoors.iienetwork.org/
Walder, Andrew G. 1995. “China’s Transitional Economy: Interpreting Its Significance.” The China Quarterly 144: 963-979.
The Chinese are one of the most academically mobile student populations on the planet and it is this population that is helping fuel the Chinese economy. According to the Institute of International Education, during the 2005-2006 academic year there were 62,582 students from China studying in the United States. This represents approximately 11% of the total international student population studying in the United States. Further evidence of the large numbers of Chinese students studying abroad can be found in the Institute of International Education’s Atlas of Student Mobility where 15.4% of the 344,335 international student population (the largest percentage) in the United Kingdom hails from China and in Germany students from China represent the largest percentage at 10.5% of the 246,334 total international students.
Resources
Cable, Vincent., and Ferdinand, Peter. 1994. “China as an Economic Giant: Threat or
Opportunity?” International Affairs 70: 243-261.
Chang, Maria Hsia. 1995. “Greater China and the Chinese ‘Global Tribe.’” Asian Survey 35: 955-967.
Institute of International Education. (2006). “Atlas of International Student Mobility.” http://www.atlas.iienetwork.org/
Institute of International Education. (2006). “Opendoors Online: Report on International Educational Exchange.” http://opendoors.iienetwork.org/
Walder, Andrew G. 1995. “China’s Transitional Economy: Interpreting Its Significance.” The China Quarterly 144: 963-979.
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